Kerala High Court Directs Meta To Block Facebook Video Containing Vulgar Remarks About Sabarimala Deities

The Kerala High Court on Thursday (September 10) directed Meta to temporarily block and disable a video on Facebook, which allegedly contains vulgar and sexually explicit remarks against Sabarimala deities Lord Ayyappa and Malikappurathamma.

Justice G. Girish today viewed the afore post while considering a plea moved by right-wing activist Rahul Easwar, seeking takedown of the objectionable contents and registration of a formal criminal case against Dalit writer-activist Sunny M. Kapikad, who allegedly made these remarks.

"I have today viewed the objectionable video, with the assistance of the technical staff of this Court, in open court. It appears that the allegation of the petitioner herein about the scandalous and indecent speech made...about the deities of Sabarimala temple, is found to be substantiated. The continuance of the above video in the social media platform would definitely hurt the religious beliefs of the worshippers of the aforesaid deity. In the above circumstances, the 4th respondent [Meta] is hereby directed to temporarily block and disable public access to the above video at the URL."

When the matter came up today morning, the Court orally said that it would pass orders only after verifying the contents of the video URL mentioned in the plea.

"Still this objectionable content is available?...I also want to know what exactly is the objectionable item which he has referred. According to you, this can be viewed in this URL? Let me verify what is the video. I will direct the IT team to make the necessary arrangements to view the same. If necessary, the appropriate interim order will be passed."

The Court in the evening viewed the video and orally added that it is confining its order to the URL mentioned in the pleas:

"I am confining only to this URL. What is said that they [Meta] will not be in position to scrutinise all these, whether somebody is uploading it or...that is the issue."

Advocate P.T. Sheejish appearing for Easwar submitted that he shall verify whether there were any other URLs containing the said objectionable content. It was argued that the statement made by Kapikad was absolutely derogatory and affected the sensitivity of the persons who believed in the religion and the deity.

Meta's counsel Thomas P. Kuruvilla pointed out that the present mechanism does not permit it to scrutinise whether the video in the URL has been circulated and disable them all. He prayed that the order be confined to the URL mentioned and requested that the enforcement mechanism in place can be relied on with respect to the re-circulated posts. 

The case is posted after 3 weeks for further consideration.

The petition is moved by Advocates P.T. Sheejish and Ayonna George.

Case No: WP(Crl.) 1326/ 2026

Case Title: Rahul K. Easwar v. State of Kerala and Ors.